Short answer: people follow a local business for one of three reasons. It teaches them something useful, it shows them work they enjoy looking at, or there is a person behind it they have come to like. What makes somebody stop scrolling is a different thing entirely, and confusing the two is why most small business feeds go quiet. Entertainment stops the scroll. Usefulness earns the follow.
Here is a question worth sitting with for ten seconds before you read on.
Think of a local business you follow and have never bought anything from. Not a big brand. A real one, within a few miles of you. Why are you still following it?
Hold onto your answer. We will come back to it.
Three strangers walk past your door
Three people go past your place today.
The first has never heard of you. They do not know what you sell, what it costs, or whether you are any good.
The second has walked past about forty times. They know exactly what you are. They have just never had a reason to come in.
The third came in once, eighteen months ago, had a perfectly nice time, and has not thought about you since.
Now look at the last thing you posted. Which of those three was it for?
Most owners, doing this honestly, land on the same answer: none of them. It was written for somebody who already knows them and was coming in anyway. That is the most common mistake in small business social media, and it is invisible from the inside, because when you are the owner every post feels obvious.
Stopping the scroll and earning the follow are two different jobs
This is the bit that surprises people.
Sprout Social surveyed 1,000 UK social media users in February 2026 and asked what actually makes them stop scrolling. Entertainment and humour came first at 30%. Educational value came second at 25%. So far, so predictable: be funny, get attention.
Then they asked a different question. What do you actually want to see from brands this year? The top answer, by a distance, was educational posts about products and services, at 41%. It was the number one answer in every single age group. Not memes. Not behind the scenes. Teach me something about what you sell.
Read those two findings next to each other and you get the whole of local social media in one line. Entertainment is what makes a stranger stop. Usefulness is what makes them stay. They are different jobs and most businesses attempt neither, because most businesses post announcements.
An announcement is a post that only makes sense if you already care. “Happy Friday everyone.” “Only two slots left this week.” “Look at this lovely day.” Nobody has ever stopped walking because a window display said Happy Friday.
Now go back to your answer
That local business you follow and have never bought from. Why do you still follow it?
Nearly everybody who does this exercise comes back with one of three answers. Either it tells them something they find useful, or it shows them work they enjoy looking at, or there is a person behind it they have quietly come to like.
None of those is an announcement. And you already knew this, which is the point. You have never once behaved like the audience you are posting for.
The trick: use a name
In that same UK survey, people said they wanted content from front-line staff (16%) over content from bosses (9%). Nearly twice as much.
The cheap version of that is to stop writing as “we” and start using a name. “Beth has done three of these this week” beats “we have done three of these this week”, and it costs you nothing.
There is a reason it works. A name is a concrete noun and your brain files concrete nouns far more reliably than abstract ones. “We” is a shape. “Beth” is a person. If you are a one-person business, you are Beth.
What people have stopped putting up with
One more finding from that survey, because it has moved quickly.
Asked what they most wish businesses would stop doing in 2026, UK users put unlabelled AI content top at 28%. Separately, 36% had already unfollowed or muted an account for feeling like low-effort filler, and 68% said they are more selective than they were a year ago.
Read that as a warning about effort rather than about technology. People have become very good at spotting content nobody could be bothered to make. Your advantage over a chain is that you are actually there, doing the actual work, and you can prove it with a photo taken on your phone in ten seconds.
One minute, right now
Open your own feed. Look at your last nine posts as a grid.
Count how many of them would mean anything at all to the first stranger, the one who has never heard of you.
Write the number down. Actually write it, on paper or in your notes, because a number you have written about your own business sticks in a way that a number you read about somebody else’s never will.
Most people get between 0 and 2. If you got 2 you are ahead of nearly everyone.
Then fix it in the cheapest way available: your next three posts show the work. Not the finished, polished, best-ever version. The ordinary Tuesday version, which is the one that proves it was real. If you are stuck for what those three could be, there is a long list here: what to post on social media when you have no idea what to post.
The short version
- Entertainment stops the scroll. Usefulness earns the follow. Different jobs.
- Announcements do neither, and most feeds are almost entirely announcements.
- Write for the stranger, not for the regular. The regular is already coming.
- Use a person’s name. Nearly twice as many people want to hear from the person doing the work than from the boss.
- Effort is visible, and in 2026 people are actively rewarding it.
Frequently asked questions
Why do people follow small business accounts? For three reasons, in this order: the account teaches them something useful, it shows them work they like looking at, or they have come to like the person behind it. UK research in 2026 put educational content as the number one thing people want from businesses, at 41%, ahead of every other type.
Should a small business try to be funny on social media? Humour is the most effective way to stop somebody scrolling, but it is not what keeps them. Use it to open, then give them something worth having. A feed that is only jokes gets followed and then forgotten, because nothing in it tells anyone what you actually do.
How often should a local business post? Less often than you fear, and more consistently than you manage. Consistency beats volume every time. There is a fuller answer here: how often should a small business post on social media.
How do I get more followers for my local business? Mostly by worrying about it less than you do. A local business needs a far smaller number of the right people than most owners assume, and follower count is a poor guide to whether any of it is working. The three numbers worth checking every month are more use.
Do I need to say when a post was made with AI? In the UK there is no law and no advertising rule requiring it. What there are rules about is misleading people, and what there is clear public feeling about is low-effort content. The two are not the same thing.
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